TRANSCEND T SONIC T – 310
OVERALL SCORE: 5/5
BUILD QUALITY: 5/5
SOUND QUALITY: 5/5
BATTERY LIFE: 5/5
FEATURES : 5/5
INTRODUCTION:
We usually expect reviews for products which are new to the market fighting amongst each other to grab a bite of the market share. This is a review for a product which nobody or very few people would’ve heard of or seen. It has turned 6 today. It’s a tribute to my MP3 player that always deserved recognition but lay hidden and of late unused.
In 2004-2005 mp3 players in the market were very expensive and ones with larger capacities were almost unattainable or unavailable. I wanted a mp3 player to entertain me on my commute to engineering college but couldn’t ask for the exorbitant amounts that the mp3 were priced at. Hence I began looking for MP3 players that looked like a USB pen drive to trick the finance minister (dad) into funding my needless expenses (computer hardware!).
At that time only two players could pass off as pen drives – the iPod shuffle and the Transcend T-310. There was a single review on the net for the T-310 (some website called techlounge) and it was unavailable on most of the sites like Newegg or tigerdirect. After searching Lamington road thoroughly only Mahavir Computers said he could source the player. I bought my player for 2400rs which was pretty cheap as the iPod shuffle 1gb was much more expensive and this one looked exactly like a pendrive and was priced on par with 1gb pendrives(back then 1Gb pen drives would cost 1500â€â€2000rs).
PACKAGING:
The player came in the same packing that old transcend products would come in. A see through packaging and with it came accessories like a driver cd with some security features that allowed you to lock or password protect the drive if it were to be used as a pendrive, a pair of headphones, a lanyard, a warranty card and some literature promoting the products transcend made.
BUILD QUALITY: 5/5
As you can see from the images nothing has changed over the years. It’s still as good as new and has stood the test of time! It has survived the local train commute; college and all the boozing that came with it, trips all over the country and even a massive bike accident at 50kmph where a very expensive, new pair of Levis was shred to pieces due to the entire weight of the bike and my friend falling on me. The player played on through the accident. It is tough and can withstand drops and abuse as well as rain with ease.
The player comes without any buttons other than the play/pause button which is also used to start the player up. The headphones/earphones have to be connected to the player for it to start working. If the earphone is removed the player shuts itself down and on being powered on again it resumes playback from the track from where it was shutdown.
The touchpad is made by Synaptics – the same guys who manufacture laptop touchpads. The touchpad is very responsive and offers smooth operation it is also used to control the volume and the functions such as switching tracks, fast forwarding and skipping. There is also a lock/unlock button on the side that allows you to lock the player to prevent skipping or changing tracks and volume and unlock it to do the mentioned functions.
SOUND QUALITY: 5/5
This player was built solely to compete with the iPod shuffle and it did the job brilliantly. It sounded way better than the iPod shuffle and most of the mp3 players available then (except Cowon and Sony) and the hard drive based players. The bass is punchy and the mids and highs are perfect but the lows are weak. It has no equalizer and no display so custom EQ and EQ presets are out of question but it does sound very nice. The bundled earphones were really good, loud and clear but they looked somewhat similar to the cheap earphones that came with the Chinese mp3 players. I have used it with many headphones and IEMs but found that it sounded the best with my Philips SHP 2700. It sounds very good with the creative ep630 and the soundmagic pl-11. I have had audiophiles certify that the player sounds better than the iPod shuffle and also the older iPod nanos.
BATTERY LIFE: 5/5
It comes with a lithium ion battery that gives 15-16 hours of battery life on continuous music playback with approximately 80% of the volume. It takes about 3 hours to charge fully.
OTHER FEATURES: 5/5
It can be used as a pendrive and requires no fancy software to transfer data. Drag and drop the music files and you are good to go. It can play while being charged. The player does not support playlists due to the absence of a screen but folders if arranged in a specific order (alphabetically) will play the tracks accordingly. The player offers very good read and write speeds which are way faster than my Corsair flash voyager 4 GB. It can be used as a bootable usb device and I have used it to load and run a usb installation of ubuntu and DSL- damn small linux. Portable applications have also been used in this drive.
CONCLUSION:
Once in a while we come across gadgets that make us smile and wish all other gadgets were as reliable or just plain simple honest devices that provided unadulterated fun with no strings attached. This Transcend T sonic T-310 is one of them. Its lasted me a long time and I am sure it will last for a very long time. For 2400rs 6 years back it was a bargain. Its job was simple – compete with the iPod shuffle and for that reason I don’t take the lack of a screen or display as a negative point – it was designed and meant to be used without a screen the very same way as an iPod shuffle was. It bettered the first generation shuffle and the subsequent generations by providing excellent sound quality and for that it gets a 5 star rating!
IMAGES:
OVERALL SCORE: 5/5
BUILD QUALITY: 5/5
SOUND QUALITY: 5/5
BATTERY LIFE: 5/5
FEATURES : 5/5
INTRODUCTION:
We usually expect reviews for products which are new to the market fighting amongst each other to grab a bite of the market share. This is a review for a product which nobody or very few people would’ve heard of or seen. It has turned 6 today. It’s a tribute to my MP3 player that always deserved recognition but lay hidden and of late unused.
In 2004-2005 mp3 players in the market were very expensive and ones with larger capacities were almost unattainable or unavailable. I wanted a mp3 player to entertain me on my commute to engineering college but couldn’t ask for the exorbitant amounts that the mp3 were priced at. Hence I began looking for MP3 players that looked like a USB pen drive to trick the finance minister (dad) into funding my needless expenses (computer hardware!).
At that time only two players could pass off as pen drives – the iPod shuffle and the Transcend T-310. There was a single review on the net for the T-310 (some website called techlounge) and it was unavailable on most of the sites like Newegg or tigerdirect. After searching Lamington road thoroughly only Mahavir Computers said he could source the player. I bought my player for 2400rs which was pretty cheap as the iPod shuffle 1gb was much more expensive and this one looked exactly like a pendrive and was priced on par with 1gb pendrives(back then 1Gb pen drives would cost 1500â€â€2000rs).
PACKAGING:
The player came in the same packing that old transcend products would come in. A see through packaging and with it came accessories like a driver cd with some security features that allowed you to lock or password protect the drive if it were to be used as a pendrive, a pair of headphones, a lanyard, a warranty card and some literature promoting the products transcend made.
BUILD QUALITY: 5/5
As you can see from the images nothing has changed over the years. It’s still as good as new and has stood the test of time! It has survived the local train commute; college and all the boozing that came with it, trips all over the country and even a massive bike accident at 50kmph where a very expensive, new pair of Levis was shred to pieces due to the entire weight of the bike and my friend falling on me. The player played on through the accident. It is tough and can withstand drops and abuse as well as rain with ease.
The player comes without any buttons other than the play/pause button which is also used to start the player up. The headphones/earphones have to be connected to the player for it to start working. If the earphone is removed the player shuts itself down and on being powered on again it resumes playback from the track from where it was shutdown.
The touchpad is made by Synaptics – the same guys who manufacture laptop touchpads. The touchpad is very responsive and offers smooth operation it is also used to control the volume and the functions such as switching tracks, fast forwarding and skipping. There is also a lock/unlock button on the side that allows you to lock the player to prevent skipping or changing tracks and volume and unlock it to do the mentioned functions.
SOUND QUALITY: 5/5
This player was built solely to compete with the iPod shuffle and it did the job brilliantly. It sounded way better than the iPod shuffle and most of the mp3 players available then (except Cowon and Sony) and the hard drive based players. The bass is punchy and the mids and highs are perfect but the lows are weak. It has no equalizer and no display so custom EQ and EQ presets are out of question but it does sound very nice. The bundled earphones were really good, loud and clear but they looked somewhat similar to the cheap earphones that came with the Chinese mp3 players. I have used it with many headphones and IEMs but found that it sounded the best with my Philips SHP 2700. It sounds very good with the creative ep630 and the soundmagic pl-11. I have had audiophiles certify that the player sounds better than the iPod shuffle and also the older iPod nanos.
BATTERY LIFE: 5/5
It comes with a lithium ion battery that gives 15-16 hours of battery life on continuous music playback with approximately 80% of the volume. It takes about 3 hours to charge fully.
OTHER FEATURES: 5/5
It can be used as a pendrive and requires no fancy software to transfer data. Drag and drop the music files and you are good to go. It can play while being charged. The player does not support playlists due to the absence of a screen but folders if arranged in a specific order (alphabetically) will play the tracks accordingly. The player offers very good read and write speeds which are way faster than my Corsair flash voyager 4 GB. It can be used as a bootable usb device and I have used it to load and run a usb installation of ubuntu and DSL- damn small linux. Portable applications have also been used in this drive.
CONCLUSION:
Once in a while we come across gadgets that make us smile and wish all other gadgets were as reliable or just plain simple honest devices that provided unadulterated fun with no strings attached. This Transcend T sonic T-310 is one of them. Its lasted me a long time and I am sure it will last for a very long time. For 2400rs 6 years back it was a bargain. Its job was simple – compete with the iPod shuffle and for that reason I don’t take the lack of a screen or display as a negative point – it was designed and meant to be used without a screen the very same way as an iPod shuffle was. It bettered the first generation shuffle and the subsequent generations by providing excellent sound quality and for that it gets a 5 star rating!
IMAGES:
